


Usual

by temporalgambit



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Sickfic, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 08:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9647609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalgambit/pseuds/temporalgambit
Summary: A pit stop on an unfamiliar planet brings unintended consequences. Allura runs damage control.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Whaaat more Voltron sickfic?

“You mean to tell me Alteans don’t catch colds?”

“It’s not exactly a normal cold, Lance,” Shiro corrects, clearing his throat with a slight grimace.

“Okay, space-colds then. You can’t catch them?”

Allura shakes her head, completely mystified by this new revelation. “I can’t say for sure, but I’ve never seen anything with symptoms like this in one of our people. We have our own illnesses, but not like—” she gestures to the paladins before her, “—this. If I’d had known—”

“You had no way to know,” Shiro interjects again. “We’ll just have to move forward from here.”

“And there’s no way the pods will be able to cure us?” Keith rasps, hands in tight fists at his sides.

Coran has the answer to that one. “I’m afraid not. They’re built to cure Altean illnesses and injuries, after all. They won’t know what to do with a pathogen they’ve never come in contact with.”

They stand in grim silence.

“Well…” Pidge pipes up, “if all we have is the usual cold symptoms, we should be able to ride it out, right?” And her voice sounds so hopeful that the others can’t help but agree.

* * *

 

Unfortunately, the common cold—or whatever _this_ is—takes no prisoners.

By the next morning, Allura is truly worried.

Despite all assurances that this kind of disease is perfectly harmless, it certainly doesn’t _seem_ harmless. They’re all feverish, for one, and her keen eyes are able to pick out suppressed chills from both Keith and Shiro. Nobody is very hungry at all, and even Hunk barely picks at his breakfast. Pidge has a wet-sounding cough that seems too big for her slight frame, and Lance looks about ready to topple over onto his plate.

Yet, supposedly, all of this is typical.

Her worry is compounded when _every single one_ of her would-be patients informs her that most people continue about their daily lives despite feeling unwell.

In _her_ opinion, anyone running any sort of abnormal temperature really ought to be in bed. Unfortunately, this is not a widely-accepted concept on Earth. Not according to these paladins, anyway. She hopes this isn’t all some kind of elaborate joke.

They go about their business as usual after the plates are cleared, but that isn’t going to stop her from keeping an eye on them—if only for her own sake.

She leaves them alone until just a bit before lunchtime, but then concern finally wins out and she finds herself pacing the castle halls. Her first stop is to check on Pidge, which just happens to be where she finds Hunk as well.

Stepping into the room, she voices her concerns to the both of them. Pidge has a screwdriver in her mouth and can’t properly answer. Holding some kind of contraption in place while she tightens a bolt, Hunk tries his best to sound reassuring. “It’s really not dangerous, I swear. Colds don’t cause super high fevers or anything, so you don’t have to worry about this frying our brains.”

Her eyes widen is shock. “You mean some of your diseases _do_ that?!”

“Uh…” he immediately looks regretful, “…yes, but not this one. I promise.”

She looks to Pidge for confirmation, and the silence stretches for a minute before Pidge is able to put down the tool. “Humans aren’t that—” her whole body is suddenly wracked with coughs, “—fragile,” she finally chokes out.

Allura nods in agreement, though every part of her wishes she could make it better. “I know, I’m sorry if I implied so. I just thought it might be more beneficial if you were to spend your time focusing on recovering instead. Would that not make the duration of your illness shorter?”

A shrug is her only response.

Hunk looks tired, but offers a smile nonetheless.

Allura sighs, but resolves to let it go. For now.

* * *

 

Unfortunately, Keith and Lance are the next pair she encounters, and apparently being ill isn’t enough to keep them from arguing on the training deck.

“You—stay on your side with your germs. I don’t want—”

“So they’re _my_ germs now?!” Lance sounds incredulous. “I seem to recall _someone_ talking to the locals—”

“Yeah, and that _someone_ was _you!_ So just go and—and….a… _ah_ … _n_ …” and then Keith abruptly doubles over with not one, but _four_ squeaky little mouse sounds.

Allura blinks. Is that what sneezes are _supposed_ to sound like, or…?

Lance bursts into hysterics. “ _That’s_ your—you mean—I’m so—you really—” soon his laughter turns into coughing, but it doesn’t seem to affect his mirth. “ _Bless you_ , I’ll even say it because you—”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Keith grouses, clearly out of obligation rather than genuine thanks. He digs in his pocket and comes up with a slightly crumpled tissue, scrubbing viciously at his already-chapped nose.

Lance, meanwhile, has straightened up, “Why do you hold them in? One of these times, your eyes are gonna pop out of your head. That’s science.”

“That’s not tr—” 

“It _is!_ ”

“It’s not!”

“ _Is!_ ”

And they’re back at it again, just the same as when she’d walked through the door.

She heaves another sigh, but decides to give them the benefit of the doubt. As long as they have the energy to fight with each other, this cold can’t be _too_ bad, right?

* * *

Her last stop is with whom she hopes is the single sane paladin left on the ship.

She checks nearly everywhere, but can find no trace of him. She’s almost given up on looking when she spots him right where she’d started—watching Pidge and Hunk hard at work from a distance. They are either unaware or indifferent to his presence, working (and coughing, and sneezing) independently of him. He doesn’t seem to notice Allura’s approach either until she whispers his name from behind. 

She beckons him closer when he turns his head, and he follows her out into the hall.

“How long have you been here?” she asks.

“Oh, uh…” he glances around, looking for some time-measuring instrument. Coming up short, he answers, “no idea. A little while.”

“We must’ve just missed each other. I was looking for you.”

His expression is sheepish, “Sorry. I was just—”

“Worrying about them?” she finishes for him. He nods.

“It’s just that—with these alien diseases, you never know…” he looks troubled. “Nobody seems like they’re that sick, but if something changes…it’s too unpredictable to just…” he trails off.

An honest concern meets with another, “You’re not impervious either, you know.”

“I know, but—”

“Worrying isn’t going to make the situation better.”

“I _know_ , but—” 

Why don’t you come and talk with me for a while? I’d like to hear more about your human pathogens, for future reference.”

He thinks about it for a long moment—long enough for her to take in how exhausted and strung-out he looks. Had he even slept? And he’s a bit flushed, as well… It hurts her heart to see him so concerned for others without taking his own wellbeing into account.

At his wordless nod, she brings them to the common area and sits directly across from him. “Tell me everything you know about human illness.”

He pauses. Opens his mouth, then closes it again, trying to figure out where to start.

Then he begins to speak.

He tells her _exactly_ what a cold is, and how it’s different from this thing called influenza. He explains how humans can become immune to things they’ve had before, and how vaccines protect them from some of the things they haven’t. He talks about the different kinds of pathogens, how they spread, and how they can be treated. He mentions how much medical care has improved in the past 100 years, and how it’s vastly increased the average human lifespan. And then there’s…

He knows a lot, and she’s impressed by the number of ways human illnesses are similar to Altean ones—and how they are, at the same time, very, very different. However, she’s _more_ impressed by how he occasionally stumbles over a word, and how his eyelids have sunk to half-mast.

He pauses to yawn, apologizes, and loses his train of thought. She has to hold back a smile. He mumbles something she can’t quite make out, and she’s _certain_ he’s well on his way to falling asleep when—

“Allura!” it’s Hunk with Pidge in tow, calling from the doorway. She stands to meet them halfway, leaving Shiro looking mildly dazed on the couch behind her.

“Allura, do you know where the—” Pidge interrupts herself, “—is something wrong with Shiro?”

She sighs. “Not any more than with the rest of you, but…” she gives them the gist.

A moment of silence, then Pidge and Hunk meet each other’s eyes with matching grins. “That’s _way_ more important than what we were doing.” They saunter over to the couch, making a big show of not appearing “suspicious,” and strategically place themselves on either side of the black lion’s paladin.

Amused, Allura steps back to lean on the doorframe and watch them work their magic.

“Hey Shiro,” Pidge coughs into the crook of her arm a few times, “we don’t feel well. Can we sit with you?”

Shiro nods, not questioning their closeness as they get settled in.

Hunk scoots so they can sit side-by-side, and Allura doesn’t miss the way his hand comes up to rest on Shiro’s shoulder, thumb gently kneading into the huge knot of tension in the crook of his neck.

Pidge, meanwhile, snuggles up close so he can rest his arm over her shoulders—putting absolutely none of her feverish body heat to waste.

A long silence stretches over them, but Allura notices the difference immediately. Alone, Shiro is unable to truly relax—the weight of every self-imposed responsibility too heavy a burden to ignore. But solidarity, he can manage. Misery loves company, but misery takes a backseat to the shared comfort he finds in taking care of his teammates—even if, in this case, it means letting them take care of him too.

This is obviously not lost on Shiro. As his eyes slowly slip shut, a ghost of a smile quirks up the corners of his mouth. “You guys are evil.”

Hunk covers a laugh with a cough, Pidge’s face scrunches in delight, and Shiro’s breathing evens out.

It’s not long before they’re all asleep.

* * *

 

Time passes.

Allura isn’t sure exactly how much, with how engrossed she’s been with the sleeping trio on the couch, but she is removed from her meditative state by two pairs of footsteps coming down the hall.

There’s no doubt that it must be Lance and Keith—having made up, judging by the hushed tones of voices. Or maybe…Allura puts one finger to her lips as they round the corner, and they both immediately stop.

“What’s—”

“Why—”

Apparently, they’d bickered themselves hoarse. Or _hoarser_ , she supposes.

“Is something wrong?” Keith whispers.

Allura shakes her head, then gestures into the room behind herself.

They peer in before, “Oh,” said simultaneously. They look at each other as if communicating telepathically, then shrug.

Lance makes a beeline to sit next to Hunk, the cuddliest choice, where he is accepted with a hug and a sleepy smile. Keith, on the other hand, sits somewhat stiffly next to Pidge. She stirs slightly and peeks open an eye.

“If you wanna snuggle, you have to commit,” she orders, and he quickly finds his head rested comfortably on top of hers.

Soon the room is filled with nothing but the soft sounds of congested snoring.

As Coran tiptoes in with a stack of blankets, Allura’s chest fills with gladness that they’re all finally resting.

They just might be okay, after all.


End file.
